This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Downtown residents irked by ‘dominating’ duplex mega-dwellings

By Christopher ReynoldsStaff Reporter

Fri., Oct. 2, 2015

A homeowner says she sold her house downtown, uprooted her life in the community and left the GTA because a “monstrous” residential building was poised to butt up against her property.

“It was 100 per cent this building that prompted me to leave,” said Carol Keates, an 18-year resident of 108 Palmerston Ave., until 2013. “I never thought I’d move — from that street or Toronto.”

A planned duplex of “dominating” height, depth and wall-to-wall proximity to her house would block out sunlight and “cut her off,” she said.

“It’s overpowering. It’s a tall, void-of-a-soul house,” said Keates, who now owns a more expansive lot in Port Hope. “No one’s going to build a thing like that beside me here.”

The development at 110 Palmerston Ave., completed this year, is one of several byproducts of a city zoning loophole that has the potential — theoretically — to nearly double the number of homes on residential lots by opening the backdoor to “enormous” vertical duplexes, residents say.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

The nascent trend, underway in the Ossington-Dundas area, stems from a low-profile bylaw change two years ago and could reduce affordable rental units, mutate streetscapes and “box in” residents across the GTA, says Jessica Wilson, vice-chair of the Confederation of Resident and Ratepayer Associations (CORRA).

“It amounts to allowing two semi-detached houses on one lot,” she said.

“This definition change has introduced a loophole which has huge consequences for the entire city because almost every neighbourhood in the city allows duplexes.”

Members of the Saskin family — patriarch Alan Saskin runs Toronto real estate developer Urbancorp — have bought at least five residential properties downtown since 2011 that were then razed to make way for more modern buildings, according to city planning documents. Each of the five — two are currently being constructed — comprises two three-storey homes.

City planning officials say no other vertical duplexes are in the works for now, a claim confirmed by a search of city property records.

Four sales by the Saskins’ Landmark Building Corp. on Givins St. and Markham St. between 2011 and 2014 snagged between $1 million and $1.3 million per “unit.” There are two units on each property. Landmark or one of the Saskins typically paid between $550,000 and $750,000 for these previously unparcelled properties.

The structures, given variances by the committee of adjustment, often jut far into the backyard, extend to the property line of adjacent lots and tower over neighbouring bungalows or two-storey homes.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

“Personally, I saw it as opening the flood gates to blocking us in and allowing big developers on our street,” said Elizabeth Magner, previously on the board of the Trinity Bellwoods Community Association.

Magner agrees with Wilson that the bylaw’s ramifications, intended or not, go against the city’s healthy neighbourhoods policy.

Part of Toronto’s official plan, the policy dictates that development in residential neighbourhoods must “reinforce the existing physical character of buildings” and maintain the “physically stable areas” they populate.

“I don’t think it’s a development that promotes that,” Magner said.

“With at least one person forced to move out, I would say that’s the definition of destabilizing,” Wilson said.

When the “condominiumized” duplexes replace smaller houses containing multiple apartment units, they merely drive up house and rental costs without adding more units, she said. “It’s a wash.”

Not everyone has an issue with the new structures. “They don’t give me any problems,” said Leopolda Amorim, who has lived at 112 Palmerston — right beside the new duplex — for about 35 years.

Landmark’s Andrew Saskin declined to comment. Evan Saskin, also from Landmark, did not respond to emails. The company did not return calls from the Star.

The 2013 bylaw change is currently under appeal with the Ontario Municipal Board.

Residents had until last month to submit a list of objections.

What is a vertical duplex?

Vertical duplexes, or vertical splits, are when a building on one lot is divided vertically into two homes.

These were apparently not permitted until changes under the city’s harmonized zoning bylaw in May 2013. Previously defined as a “horizontal division (of) two dwelling units,” a duplex is now officially “a building that has two dwelling units, with one dwelling unit entirely or partially above the other.”

Developers are stretching the definition of “partially.” Technically, nothing in the bylaw prevents them from building dwellings side by side on one lot under one roof — with a negligible part of one unit “partially above the other” to appease the letter of the law.

The bylaw was passed partly to keep within regulatory bounds the many duplexes separated by floors and ceilings — rather than walls — but which have a small, vertically divided portion, usually at the front of the house to accommodate a staircase.

More from The Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com